THE DISAPPEARED: The New York Times has discovered Greg Gutfeld!

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2025

His conduct still gets disappeared: The battle over the government shutdown—the battle over food assistance; the battle over affordable health care—is taking place within a larger context.

We refer to the nation's political discourse, or perhaps to its imitation of same. We've often told you this:

It's relatively easy to be aware of the various things which get reported and said. It can be extremely hard to be aware of the many things which get disappeared.

Many things do get disappeared within the American discourse. Having offered that tantalizing suggestion, we start our week with this:

Viewership numbers for cable news programs are now available for the month of October. Below, you see the way the Nielsen numbers looked last month for the fifteen most watched "cable news" programs.

The numbers represent the average audience for the particular program. For the full report from Adweek, you can just click here:

Here Are the Cable News Ratings for October 2025 / Total viewers
1. The Five, Fox News: 3.7 million
2. Jesse Watters Primetime, Fox News: 3.1 million
3. Gutfeld!, Fox News: 2.8 million
4. Special Report with Bret Baier, Fox News: 2.8 million
5. Hannity, Fox News: 2.6 million
6. The Ingraham Angle, Fox News: 2.6 million
7. The Will Cain Show, Fox News: 2.2 million
8. Outnumbered, Fox News: 2.0 million
9. America’s Newsroom, Fox News: 2.0 million
10. The Faulkner Focus, Fox News: 1.9 million
11. The Story with Martha MacCallum, Fox News: 1.9 million
12. America Reports, Fox News: 1.9 million
13. The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC: 1.6 million
14. Fox News @Night, Fox News: 1.5 million
15. Fox & Friends, Fox News: 1.3 million

You are correct, sir! Among October's most-watched "cable news" programs, fourteen of the top fifteen aired on the Fox News Channel.

(Just so you'll know, CNN's most-watched program was The Arena with Kasie Hunt. Airing at 4 p.m. Eastern, it averaged 611,000 viewers.)

To what extent do these three channels shape the American discourse? That would be hard to determine. But for better or worse, there is no doubt that the Fox News Channel dominates this competition. Across the sweep of the full day, it had three times as many viewers as MSNBC during the month just passed, almost four times as many as CNN.

The Fox News Channel rules the seas and has done so for years! For better or worse, the New York Times has started reacting to that fact, with special attention being paid to that channel's Greg Gutfeld and his band of merry men and women.

To its credit, the New York Times didn't pull Gutfeld's name out of a hat. Along with his towel-snapping pal Jesse Watters, Gutfeld dominates the pseudo-discussions on The Five, where the two lads serve as regular co-hosts. 

On that most-watched program of them all, this pair of potentates tend to split the "interruption of Tarlov" duties, a key part of the program's tribally pleasing frisson. Gutfeld tends to dominate the attempt at conducting something resembling real discussion with the long filibusters in which he delivers his attempts at constructing coherent political theories.

That horseplay plus disquisition performance occurs each day at 5 p.m. Eastern. Three hours later, Watters hosts his own nightly show—the second most-watched TV show in all of cable news.

Gutfeld's eponymous program follows two hours later. 

Due to this double-dipping, Watters is seen by more people, on a nightly basis, than anyone else in cable news. Gutfeld runs a close second. 

Presumably, this helps explain why the New York Times has now featured Gutfeld and his eponymous Gutfeld! show in two large recent profiles. The latest such profile, written by David Marchese, starts off exactly like this, headline included:

The Interview: Fox News Wanted Greg Gutfeld to Do This Interview. He Wasn’t So Sure.

Why can’t conservatives break through on late-night TV? For years, that was an open cultural question. The left, of course, had “The Daily Show” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” among others. Once the Trump era began, progressives could also point to hosts like Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers as being politically simpatico. The right had, well, no one.

That is, until Greg Gutfeld. Formerly a health and men’s magazine editor, Gutfeld joined Fox News in 2007 to helm the later-than-late-night chat free-for-all “Red Eye.” He worked his way up the network’s schedule, and in 2021 his new show, “Gutfeld!” started airing on weekday nights at 11 p.m. on the East Coast. (It’s now on at 10 p.m.) Its format is different from traditional host-driven late-night shows: Rather than interview celebrity guests, Gutfeld presides over a round table of regular panelists, among them the former professional wrestler Tyrus and the commentator Kat Timpf, the designated (occasional) contrarian. The overall vibe is insult-heavy, aggressively anti-woke and relentlessly pro-conservative. It’s a successful formula. The show averages over three million viewers a night—numbers that dwarf its competitors’.

That's the way the profile starts. In certain fairly obvious ways, it goes downhill from there.

In other ways, this profile, which takes the form of an interview, can be seen as extremely revealing. The piece appeared online this weekend. It's scheduled to appear next Sunday in the New York Times magazine.

Gutfeld and Watters play prominent roles within the "cable news" industry. Arguably, they've now become the two biggest stars at the dominant Fox News Channel. 

That said:

As we've noted again and again, publications like the New York Times rarely report or discuss what happens on that channel's programs. In that way, the highly unusual content of those TV programs tends to get disappeared.

What does happen on the programs of the Fox News Channel? Last Saturday morning, on Fox & Friends Weekend, we saw a conversation between Rachel, Charlie and Griff which we thought should be reported. We'll start with that three-way exchange tomorrow morning, after which we'll move along to the way Marchese chose to interview Gutfeld—to the basic facts Marchese reported, but also to the basic facts he apparently chose to suppress.

We'll also look at the ludicrous ways Gutfeld answered Marchese's interview questions. At the age of 61, and with Tucker Carlson excepted, Gutfeld may be the strangest person who has ever played a major role on American "cable news."

That said, his disordered behavior has shot this man to the top of the "cable news" pile. Then too, there's the disorder displayed by Marchese himself—or perhaps by his editors—in the things he chose to report about Gutfeld's behavior, but also in the things he chose to suppress.

Stating the obvious, the New York Times is a very important newspaper. We readers are told many things about this world by the New York Times. Other important parts of our struggling nation tend to get disappeared.

For whatever reason, the New York Times has started to talk about Gutfeld. In comments to the Marchese interview / profile, many readers say they'd never heard of Gutfeld until this profile appeared.

Gutfeld and his eponymous program have now been the subject of two lengthy pieces in the Times in the past few months. For whatever reason, the paper still refuses to report what his strange man says and does.

The Fox News Channel rules the waves at the present time. For reasons we can't explain, Blue American orgs like the New York Times still aren't willing to take their customers on that particular sea cruise.

Tomorrow: Fox & Friends Weekend goes off

SATURDAY: We watched an array of Unrecognizables!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2025

Telling this story is hard: At one point, the Harvard Law School graduate said it, though only perhaps in a dream:

I was never a D-minus student, but I play one on cable TV.

At one point, she may have said it. Last night, we were stunned by the manifest dumbness of the first twenty minutes of the Jesse Watters Primetime show. Then, this very morning, Fox & Friends Weekend offered a bit of self-revelation of an extraordinary sort.

As we told you long ago, it's all anthropology now. And as we've told you again and again, the major news orgs of Blue America refuse to report, discuss or critique the very strange behavior which occurs on Fox News Channel programs. 

Also this:

Even after he demolished one part of the White House, those heralded news orgs refused to ask this obvious question:

Is something wrong with this man? Why does he do these things?

If something is wrong with the person in question, that is, of course, a personal tragedy—a loss of human capability. And the evidence suggests that there isn't quite as much of that capability floating around as a person might once have thought.

We're going to stop to ponder now. Telling this story is very hard. Come Monday, where should we start?  

  

FRIDAY: The political landscape seems to have changed!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2025

We revisit that Times editorial: Online, the editorial appeared last Friday, along with goblins and ghosts. Today, with the political landscape changed, it seems like a high-minded visit from those who may now be numbered among the honored dead.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/31/opinion/trump-autocracy-democracy-report.html

Over here in Blue America, we thought the focus on "our democracy" was always a bit of a semantical non-starter. The endless complexification of our governmental processes is one of the unavoidable factors which have helped lend fuel to the Tea Party and MAGA movements.

We Blues have responded in the best ways we knew. Last Friday's lengthy editorial began in the following fashion:

ARE WE LOSING OUR DEMOCRACY?

Countries that slide from democracy toward autocracy tend to follow similar patterns. To measure what is happening in the United States, the Times editorial board has compiled a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion, with help from scholars who have studied this phenomenon. The sobering reality is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.

Our country is still not close to being a true autocracy, in the mold of Russia or China. But once countries begin taking steps away from democracy, the march often continues. We offer these 12 markers as a warning of how much Americans have already lost and how much more we still could lose.

We don't disagree with the basic thrust. That said, we'll guess that most citizens think of a "democracy" as a nation which holds elections—pretty much total full stop. It will be hard to convince such people that "our democracy" is being undone as long as candidates are out on the hustings and votes are being cast.

That said:

It seems to us that the votes which were cast this past Tuesday night have changed the basic shape of the political landscape. You can call it "our democracy," or you can call it "the basic American way of life"—but whatever it is you want to call it, it looks like citizens have come to believe that some sort of change is underway which they don't much seem to like.

MAGA leadership has thereby been put on notice. It remains to be seen what they will do to push back against this tide.

That said, the Times offered twelve "signs"—twelve signs that a fundamental, undesirable change seems to be underway. It now seems that the public has noticed some such phenomenon and is willing to turn out at the polls in hopes of defeating that process. This was the list of twelve signs the editors discussed in their piece:

The 12 signs

NO. 1
An authoritarian stifles dissent and speech. Trump has started to.

NO. 2
An authoritarian persecutes political opponents. Trump has.

NO. 3
An authoritarian bypasses the legislature. Trump has started to.

NO. 4
An authoritarian uses the military for domestic control. Trump has started to.

NO. 5
An authoritarian defies the courts. Trump has started to.

NO. 6
An authoritarian declares national emergencies on false pretenses. Trump has.  

NO. 7
An authoritarian vilifies marginalized groups. Trump has.

NO. 8
An authoritarian controls information and the news media. Trump has started to.

NO. 9
An authoritarian tries to take over universities. Trump has started to.

NO. 10
An authoritarian creates a cult of personality. Trump has.

NO. 11
An authoritarian uses power for personal profit. Trump has.

NO. 12
An authoritarian manipulates the law to stay in power. Trump has started to.

The editors discuss each of those points in the course of their long editorial. Personally, we don't think that angry accusation is the best or the only possible way to approach this rolling situation. But that's what the editors said.

For the record, there are citizens who will applaud President Trump for some of those behaviors. For example, it seems that there are plenty of people who feel, rightly or wrongly, that American universities have moved way off the rails.

That said:

The victory margins on Tuesday night suggest that we the voters have noticed some ch-ch-ch-changes of which we don't approve. That represents a major change in the weather, in the political landscape.

President Trump has, in fact, displayed a bit of an authoritarian instinct over the course of the years. Given that fact, how will he and his leadership cadre respond to this apparent change in the weather?

Fellow citizens, buckle up! With mid-term elections a year away, that very much remains to be seen.

CHAOS: Those gerrymanders may backfire next year!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2025

If next year actually happens: It isn't the fact that the Democratic candidates won. As we noted yesterday, it's the fact that they won by these margins:

New Jersey gubernatorial election, 2025
Mikie Sherrill (D): 1,805,244 (56.3%)
Jack Ciattarelli (R): 1,384,601 (43.1%)

Virginia gubernatorial election, 2025
Abigail Spanberger (D): 1,921,472 (57.2%)
Winsome Earle-Sears (R): 1,433,562 (42.6%)

Assuming that next year's elections proceed in a normal way—assuming that next year's midterms take place at all—those victory margins suggest that President Trump's low approval ratings may show up as bad vote totals for Republican candidates. 

Tuesday's election results suggest that there's a change in the air. We even direct you to the possibility voiced by Russell Berman in a new essay at The Atlantic, dual headline included:

‘None of This Is Good for Republicans’
Gerrymandering efforts look different after Election Day.

President Donald Trump’s gerrymandering war has never looked riskier for his party.

Prodded by Trump, Republicans earlier this year launched an audacious plan to entrench their congressional majority by redrawing House-district maps to squeeze out Democrats—anywhere and everywhere they could. The gambit was an exercise in political power and, coming outside of the traditional decennial redistricting process, without precedent in modern history.

Yet if Democrats feared not long ago that they would be locked out of a House majority, their decisive victories across the country [Tuesday] night have made them, arguably, the favorites heading into next year’s midterm elections.

[...]

“None of this is good for Republicans. It’s all their own doing, though,” [Mike] Madrid said. Latinos in Texas border towns may vote differently in 2026 than Latinos in New Jersey did this year. But the anti-GOP shift in this week’s elections could boost the Democrats’ chances of winning two and possibly three of the five Texas seats that Republicans redrew in their favor, Madrid told me. It could also open up even more opportunities for Democrats, because to create the additional red-leaning seats, Republicans had to cut into previously safe GOP districts. “The problem is they’re spreading their other districts thin as they’re getting greedy,” Madrid said.

Berman had spoken with Mike Madrid, "the longtime GOP strategist." As the leading authority notes, Madrid was once press secretary for the Republican leader of the California Assembly, though he later became a bit of a NeverTrumper.

In that passage, Berman is describing one of the ways the current redistricting efforts may backfire for the GOP in next year's House elections.

This potential problem was occasionally cited back when the redistricting war began. On Tuesday evening, the possibility of some such backfire occurring became more clear. 

Could Republican gerrymandering backfire? This is the way the backfire would happen, using the reconfigured House districts in Texas as a case in point:

The Texas legislature has created a bunch of new House districts. They were designed to create five additional districts which seemed to favor Republican candidates.

Having said that, sad! Those new Republican-friendly seats will only be Republican-friendly if Texas voters continue to turn out and vote the way they've done in the recent past. If sentiment among Texas voters begins to turn in the way which seemed to drive Tuesday evening's victory margins, it may turn out that some of those newly Republican-friendly districts won't turn to be Republican-friendly at all.

Given the possible change in voter sentiment, Madrid is suggesting that two or three of those five House districts in Texas may end up voting for the Democratic candidate next year. It's also true that, in order to create those newly Republican-friendly districts, some Republican voters were stolen away from other districts which were already Republican-friendly.

This creates the possibility that those other districts, which elected Republicans in the past, might slip out of the Republican camp as well. In other words:

In order to create five additional "red-leaning seats," Texas Republicans had to create some other districts which are now less red-leaning. If over voter sentiment changes, the GOP could imaginably lose some of those districts too.

So it could go in next year's elections, assuming those elections take place and if voter sentiment continues to turn against President Trump. 

So it could go next year! That said, it remains to be seen how the sitting president and his staff will react to the warning signs which appeared in Tuesday's elections. Things could get extremely hairy as we move through the coming year.

It isn't the fact the Democratic candidates won in Virginia and in New Jersey. It's the fact that those candidates won by such large margins.

How will the MAGA leadership cadre react to Tuesday night's results? We don't have the slightest idea, but that's a key part of the larger question.

Also, the Fox News Channel continues to do what it can to freeze its viewers in the pro-MAGA camp. Intellectual chaos spreads across the fruited plane as these efforts continue.

This afternoon: The New York Times lists "12 signs"

Tomorrow: As recently heard, though perhaps in a dream:

"I was never a D-minus student, but I play one on cable TV!"

THURSDAY: Candidate Mamdani also won!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2025

Warfare concerning his speech: Candidate Mamdani also won on Tuesday night, in this case by just under nine points.

Warning! On a political basis, New York City isn't like anywhere else. Unique situations will always call for unique approaches and new ideas—but what about that victory speech?

What was up with his victory speech? On the front page of this morning's New York Times, Emma Fitzsimmons asks or maybe just wonders:

An Emboldened Mamdani Sheds Conciliatory Tone

A newly empowered Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday vowed to use his convincing victory in the New York City mayor’s race as a mandate to push an ambitious progressive agenda past potential obstacles, from billionaire antagonists to Albany bureaucracy.

In a shift from the mollifying tone he had used for months, Mr. Mamdani made clear that while he would govern for all New Yorkers, he was determined to deliver for those who had been agitating for structural change.

“I’m also looking to be clear about the mandate that we won over the course of this election, and it is a mandate to deliver on the agenda that we ran on,” he said in a phone interview on Wednesday afternoon...

[...]

The interview on Wednesday echoed Mr. Mamdani’s fiery victory speech on Tuesday evening, which took a more confrontational and at times boastful tone. The address was criticized by some observers as a “character switch” from his more congenial attitude during the campaign.

Forget yesterday's interview with the Times. We're here to discuss that "fiery victory speech" on Tuesday night, in which, according to Fitzsimmons, Mamdani "took a more confrontational and at times boastful tone."

The address was criticized by some observers as a “character switch” from his more congenial attitude during the campaign? In support of that statement, Fitzsimmons links to this report about CNN's Van Jones, who was trashed for what he said about Mamdani's speech by Charlamagne Tha God:

In reaction to what Jones said, Charlamagne urged him to "shut the F up"—more specifically, to do for forever:

...Charlamagne Torches CNN’s Van Jones for Calling Mamdani Victory Speech ‘Divisive’

Charlamagne Tha God blasted CNN political commentator Van Jones and told him to “shut the f up forever” after Jones called Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral victory speech “divisive.”

On Wednesday’s The Breakfast Club, Charlamagne crowned Jones the “donkey of the day” over his Mamdani take. Mamdani came out victorious on Tuesday night—one of a number of big wins for Democrats—against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

And so on from there. Full disclosure:

Like Jones, we too were struck by the tone of the mayor-elect's speech. We aren't mainly talking about what Mamdani said. We're talking about the tone with which he said it.

Mamdani faces a difficult challenge—and mountains of inane criticism from the usual suspects. Before we're done, we'll return to Jones' critique of Mamdani's speech, and to Joe Scarborough's reaction to Governor-elect Spanberger's victory speech.

Charlamagne told Jones to shut the F up? Our question would be this:

Is it possible that Jones' critique was based on some form of sound judgment?

CHAOS: Those were impressive victory margins!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2025

Except on the Fox News Channel: Secretary of Trade War Howard Lutnick says the president is going to win the current case in the Supreme Court.

Most observers seem to think that's unlikely. But last evening, sure enough! That's what Hannity viewers were told:

Lutnick Predicts ‘Trump Is Gonna Win This Case’ After Administration’s Rough Day at the Supreme Court

[...]

“The justices were on the president’s side,” Lutnick said, while wagging his finger. “You are hearing it here from me—President Trump is gonna win this case!”

As always, everything's possible! That said, we think it's worth getting clear on the size of the victory margins in Tuesday's gubernatorial races. As votes continue to trickle in, the numbers look this this:

New Jersey gubernatorial election, 2025
Mikie Sherrill (D): 1,805,244 (56.3%)
Jack Ciattarelli (R): 1,384,601 (43.1%)

Virginia gubernatorial election, 2025
Abigail Spanberger (D): 1,921,472 (57.2%)
Winsome Earle-Sears (R): 1,433,562 (42.6%)

Those were very large victory margins—unless you were watching yesterday's edition of The Five, in which case you saw Dana Perino say this:

PERINO (11/5/25): One thing I would say is that Fox polling—they didn't poll Virginia, they polled New Jersey, and they polled it exactly right—seven points for Mikie Sherrill, which a lot of people didn't want to hear at the time, but they nailed that one.

Presumably, Perino—she's cast as the sane one on this show—was referring to the late October poll reported here by Fox News Digital. That said, if people didn't want to hear that polling result, they would hate Sherrill's actual victory margin, which was a bit more than thirteen points.

Thanks to Perino's weird statement, viewers in Red America weren't asked to hear about the actual victory margin in the Garden State. But that's the way the chaos unfolds on this struggling nation's most-watched "cable news" program.

In just the last few days, viewers of the Fox News Channel were subjected to some analyses right out of the stumblebum playbook:

With respect to the Virginia race, they saw analysts puzzled by the fact that Barack Obama endorsed "the white woman with whom he agreed," rather than the black woman with whom he didn't agree.

(Yes, that's what was actually said, on at least two major programs.)

They saw Emily Compagno hotly insist that Rep. Eric Swalwell—he isn't a major favorite of ours—shouldn't be able to represent a California district because he lived with his family in Iowa until he was 11 years old.

They saw a visible nutcase say that people who attended the No Kings rallies did so because they aren't happy in their own lives and seem to be mentally ill.  Also, they saw the same peculiar fellow cover for the sitting president:

When the president tore the East Wing down, having said he would do no such thing, viewers were told that complaints made no sense. You see, President Obama had installed a basketball backboard on the White House tennis court! You just have to Google it, the Fox News superstar said.

Maddeningly, it's impossible for a lone observer to keep up with the tsunami of absurdities churned on this "cable news" channel. Can a very large nation hope to prosper with such nonsense going on?

We think the answer seems to be obvious. That said: there are quite a few things viewers of the Fox News Channel will never be asked to ponder. As this shaping of spotless minds proceeds, major organs of Blue America refuse to report or discuss the shape of this journalistic / cultural chaos.

What sorts of topics won't be discussed on the programs of the Fox News Channel? Last Friday, the editorial board of the New York offered the start of a list.

The editorial seems to have appeared in Sunday's print editions. (It appeared online last Friday.) 

At this site, we think the term "our democracy" is too fuzzy to serve as a potent framework for the discussion in question. That said, the editorial appears online under the heading shown below. It offers a list of the sorts of behaviors to which viewers of the Fox News Channel will never be exposed:

Donald Trump has wielded power as no previous president has, often in open defiance of the law. His actions have raised a chilling question.
ARE WE LOSING OUR DEMOCRACY?

The lengthy editorial proceeds from there. On the New York Times website, it's been summarized in this fashion:

12 signs we're losing our democracy

"Our democracy" strikes us as a fuzzy concept. But based on victory margins in Tuesday's gubernatorial elections, it looks like the electorate has started to absorb the messaging lodged in that lengthy editorial. 

Viewers of the Fox News Channel are shielded from such unhappy thoughts.

Tomorrow, we'll post the list of that editorial's "12 signs." The stars will still be clowning around on our nation's most-watched "cable news" channel, and the news division at the Times will still be averting its gaze.

Tomorrow: Twelve theses nailed to the wall

WEDNESDAY: As election day drew near, it turned into 5-on-none!

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2025

Charlie Hurt gets it wrong: Those were solid Democratic victories in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races. 

What will those outcomes signal to the president, but also to his team? That remains to be seen. 

With respect to the Fox News Channel, this brings us back to Charlie Hurt's recent performances, including his guest hosting spot on Monday afternoon's The Five.

Over the weekend, President Obama had appeared at a Norfolk rally in support of Candidate Spanberger. The piffle about it was general over The Five's Monday panel.

Producers even had Piers Morgan sitting in the one "Democratic Party / liberal" seat! Kennedy had sat in that seat on the previous Friday. As election day neared, the channel may have been pouring the agitprop on.

In the opening segment of Monday's show, the five like-minded panelists spilled with praise for the president's interview on 60 Minutes. "I give it an A-plus," Emily Compagno said.

In the second segment, the five reliables turned to criticizing Obama's speech in Norfolk. Young Master Gutfeld mentioned "poop" for the second time of the day, and Obama was criticized for the weirdness he displayed by his failure to endorse Spanberger's opponent.

All in all, it was vintage dumbness as practiced on The Five. When his turn came, Hurt said this:

HURT (11/3/25): Now he's pulling for the lady that he agrees with as opposed to the black woman who is extraordinarily successful. He also, at that same event that he did in Norfolk, he campaigned for Jay Jones and lectured to the rest of us about how politics has turned so dark and divisive, and we need to stop our dark, divisive politics, as he's campaigning for a guy who advocated assassinating his political opponents!

"Now he's pulling for the lady he agrees with!" Yes, that's what he said.

Here on campus, we had watched Obama's Norfolk speech. On balance, we thought it was very strong. We didn't remember any reference to Jones, the candidate for attorney general who had run into something resembling an October Surprise.

The past comments by Jones to which Hurt alluded were extremely odd. When the invaluable Rev published this transcript of that speech, we decided to give it a look.

We find no reference to Candidate Jones in Obama's remarks. On the most-watched of our flailing nation's "cable news" shows, piffle of this sort takes place all the time.

Rev has also transcribed Governor-elect Spanberger's victory speech. This morning, Joe Scarborough mentioned one part of what the winning candidate said.

We agree with Scarborough's reaction. A significant bit of electoral theory lies behind her remarks.

How do people win elections? We expect to return to what Spanberger said.

CHAOS: One C-Span caller was sure he was right!

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2025

Various sources of chaos: Even before election results rolled in, there he went again.

We've suggested that you pity the child. Be that as it may, and for whatever reason, the president posted this yesterday, as reported by the New York Times:

Republicans Reprise Unfounded Claims of Widespread Election Interference

As voters went to the polls, prominent conservatives latched onto glitches and other problems at polling stations to claim—without presenting evidence—that the results were being rigged.

[...]

The reflex to declare interference shows how much the conduct of elections continues to animate Republican politics—at least in races where the party’s candidates could be headed to defeat.

Before the polls even opened on Tuesday, Mr. Trump called a vote in California to redraw congressional districts ahead of next year’s midterm elections, as Texas and other Republican-controlled states have done, “a GIANT SCAM.”

“The entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Mr. Trump declared without citing anything to support the claim. He suggested that Republicans were somehow “shut out” of mail-in voting, warning that a “serious legal and criminal review” was on the way. Mr. Trump has long railed against mail-in voting, but it was not clear what he meant by a review.

For whatever reason, there he went again! We offer this as the key locution in that Times report:

"Without presenting evidence," the Times report now said. But so went one of the "prominent conservatives" cited in the Times report.

For whatever reason, there the president had gone again! That said, when it comes to claims of RIGGING and GIANT SCAMS, the official watchword in Red America has become well established:

No Losing Campaign Left Behind

The president offered no evidence in support of his angry claim—but so it went, in the absence of evidence, as Tuesday's elections took place. On that same day, we had read this news report in that same New York Times:

Nigeria, in Trump’s Cross Hairs, Rejects Christian Genocide Claims

President Trump has joined a chorus of alarm about an “existential threat” to Christianity in Nigeria, warning this weekend that the United States would deploy troops or carry out airstrikes in the country if its leaders didn’t “move fast” to stop the violence against Christians.

The accusations have been fueled in part by a wave of indiscriminate attacks by armed groups and Islamist insurgents over decades. More than 8,000 civilians in Nigeria—Christian and Muslim alike—have been killed so far in this year alone, according to recent data compiled by independent monitoring groups.

[...]

There is no clear evidence to show that Christians are attacked more frequently than any other religious group in Nigeria, much less an attempt at “genocide,” analysts say. But violence and land disputes have deep roots in the country. In one region where many Christians have been killed, the Middle Belt, territorial conflicts between mostly Christian farmers and mostly Muslim herders have devolved into bloody land grabs.

And so on from there.

Are those analysts right in their assessment of this situation? We can't tell you that. In this report, CNN suggested that the president's first post on this matter came in reaction to a report on the Fox News Channel—a report the president saw as he was flying to Florida for his Great Gatsby Halloween party.

The soiree took place last Friday night. As of Saturday afternoon, the president seemed to be ready to act:

Truth Details

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, “guns-a-blazing,” to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!

Nov 01, 2025, 4:43 PM

Was this president clear on his facts? We have no idea. But in the chao created by the so-called "democratization of media," inaccurate or unfounded claims come at the American public from a wide array of directions.

"Every man a king," Huey Long famously said. Today, it's every person a propagandist in support of some policy thrust or in support of some political tribe. 

Claims come at American voters from all directions and sides. Last Sunday morning, one caller to C-Span's Washington Journal showed where this new arrangement can take us:

MODERATOR (11/2/25): George, Republican line, in Ohio. Hello.

GEORGE IN OHIO: Yeah, good morning...Maybe no one has died because of this yet. But, you know, 53% of the SNAP benefits go to non-citizens. I don't know if you know that. And you speak of Obama. My wife—I'm going to tell you a true story, and I've got all the facts, and I've got paperwork...

Callers had been asked to discuss the suspension in federal food assistance through the SNAP program. We were struck by the caller's certainty that he did, in fact, have all the facts, joined to his claim that 53% of SNAP benefits currently go to non-citizens.

We were never able to find a source for that highly specific claim. That said, several news orgs had just prepared reports about this general question.

Let Newsweek serve as our first example. Within a complex and convoluted report, Newsweek eventually reported this:

How Many Migrants Use Food Stamps in America? SNAP Benefits Data Analyzed

[...]

While headlines often spotlight immigrant use of government benefits, data shows non-citizens account for a small fraction of SNAP recipients...

USDA defines a non-citizen as any individual residing in the United States who is not a natural-born or naturalized citizen. This includes lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees and individuals granted a stay of deportation. Those with legal status may be eligible for SNAP, while individuals without legal status are generally ineligible, though U.S.-born children or other eligible household members in their households may still receive assistance.

The total cost of SNAP benefits in FY 2023 was $119.6 billion, according to a 2023 report by the USDA across the program. The 1.764 million non-citizen participants accounted for roughly 4.8 percent of total spending.

That was substantially less than 53 percent! A report by Wired started like this, though at that point we hit a paywall:

No, SNAP Benefits Aren’t Mostly Used by Immigrants

As roughly 42 million Americans face the loss of food stamps this weekend, far-right influencers, extremists, and conspiracy theorists are using the crisis to push racist disinformation about who receives these benefits.

Wired tossed an R-bomb into the mix as it claimed that misinformation was being churned by various players. PolitiFact cited a clownishly bungled chart, a chart which gone viral:

Who gets food stamps? Viral chart misleads about SNAP recipients' race, ethnicity

With millions of people at risk of losing access to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Nov. 1, a viral chart claimed to show the majority of the nation’s food stamp recipients are non-white and noncitizens.

The chart, titled "Food Stamps by Ethnicity," listed 36 groups of people and said it showed the "percentage of U.S. households receiving SNAP benefits." 

And so on from there. You can read the rest of PolitiFact's report for yourself. It offers links to various social media posts which were spreading misinformation about the matter at hand. 

George in Ohio was quite sure that he had the facts, but it seems quite clear that he didn't. C-Span's moderator made no attempt to fact-check what he had said.

Under current arrangements, the chaos comes at American voters from all directions. Sometimes, the chaos comes from social media posts, including the occasional Truth Social post penned by the sitting president.

Tomorrow: The New York Times cites twelve points

TUESDAY: A busy day at the medical mission!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2025

More chaos here tomorrow: "Dramatically better," Dr. [NAME WITHHELD] said. We had headed out this morning expecting an alternate reading.

That said:

We didn't return to campus until close to 4 p.m. We'll step aside till tomorrow.

CHAOS: These may be the world's dumbest people!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 202

And yes, they actually said this: Doggone it! We're off on a medical mission today. We're not sure how long we'll be off campus.

Before we depart, we'll offer you the latest from the Fox News Channel's Charlie Hurt.

Hurt was recently named the third and final friend on the egregious program, Fox & Friends Weekend. Last night, he guest hosted for Laura Ingraham on the 7 p.m. program, The Ingraham Angle.

At one point, he interviewed Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia. There's no reason why he shouldn't have interviewed Earle-Sears—but good God! 

Believe it or not, this is what soon happened:

Fox News Host Says He Doesn’t Understand Why Obama Didn’t Endorse Black Republican: ‘I Can’t Square This’

Fox News’s Charlie Hurt said he “can’t square” why former Democratic President Barack Obama did not endorse the Black Republican nominee for governor of Virginia in Tuesday’s election.

Obama has been campaigning for former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) in her race against Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears (R) to succeed Governor Glenn Youngkin (R), who is term-limited.

[...]

The former president routinely endorses candidates who are fellow Democrats. But while appearing on Monday’s edition of The Ingraham Angle, Earle-Sears and guest host Hurt expressed puzzlement at why Obama would not endorse her, a Republican who is the first Black woman to be elected to statewide office in Virginia.

And so on from there. And yes, they actually went on at some length with this absurd bit of pre-human puzzlement.

If you click to the Mediaite report, you can see the videotape of this ridiculous pseudo-discussion. Here's what isn't mentioned by Michael Luciano in his gob-smacking report:

Two hours earlier, while guest co-hosting on The Five, Hurt had engaged in this same bit of "reasoning" with the terminally broken Young Master Gutfeld—with charges of racism on Obama's part being tossed around!

To watch that part of the pseudo-discussion, you can start by clicking here. Let's make sure you understand the nature of this reasoning:

President Obama is black—but the Democratic candidate, Abigail Spanberger, is white.

Meanwhile, the Republican candidate is black. So why didn't Obama endorse her?

Human life can't get dumber. But this sort of nonsense is reliably churned on the Fox News Channel all day and all night, with Blue America's mightiest organs refusing to report or discuss that remarkable fact.

For the record, The Five is the most-watched "cable news" show in our flailing nation. Can a sprawling modern nation survive a reign of inanity of this type?

We think the answer is somewhat clear. At some later point this week, we intend to show you more of what was said on yesterday's gong-show, The Five.

MONDAY: The latest non-denial denial!

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 20

Kash Patel pretends: Back in September, it was reported that Tom Homan had once accepted a bag of $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents.

Homan went on he Ingraham Angle and issued a non-denial denial, saying only that he had done nothing illegal or criminal. But had he actually accepted the big bag of cash?

Homan failed to say. Inevitably, Ingraham failed to follow up.

Weeks later, on October 16, Homan issued a real denial, saying that he never took the money in question at all. For Politico's review of this strange episode, you can just click here. 

Headline included, Politico's report started like this:

Border czar Tom Homan denies he took $50K from undercover agents

Border czar Tom Homan rejected reports that he took a $50,000 bribe from federal agents, his most forceful denial yet of his alleged involvement in an FBI corruption investigation.

“I didn’t take $50,000 from anybody,” Homan said in a Wednesday night appearance on NewsNation’s “Cuomo” town hall.

And so on from there. Homan had started with a non-denial denial, then switched to a real denial, insisting that the kerfuffle about his original faux denial had been a partisan "hit piece." These events have largely disappeared from the public discourse since he made the switch.

Over the weekend, the latest non-denial denial was issued, this time in hopelessly clumsy fashion by FBI head Kash Patel. The background goes like this:

In this original report, The Bulwark had reported that Patel had used his official FBI jet to travel to Penn State to watch his girlfriend, a singer, perform. According to the Bulwark report, he had then used the FBI jet to give her a lift back to Nashville.

You can read the original Bulwark report simply by clicking here. A few days later, Patel issued the latest non-denial denial, pretending that The Bulwark had been sliming his girlfriend in some way when it had actually been criticizing him.

By clicking this link, you can see the recent report by Mediaite about Patel's non-denial denial. You'll note that Patel never denies the accuracy of The Bulwark's original claims. He merely pretends that The Bulwark had been attacking her, not him.

Our public discourse is quite comfortable with ridiculous conduct like this—with conduct which takes us well beyond the boundaries of Insultingly Stupid.

We've never gotten back to the clownish way Pete Hegseth let Fort Bragg, whose name had been changed to Fort Liberty, be renamed "Fort Bragg" all over again. That second name change took us even beyond the transparent inanity of Patel's pseudo-denial. 

How desperate (and nutty) must a person be to engage in a non-name change name change like the one Hegseth engineered? Man [sic] is the rational animal, Aristotle once falsely declared.

CHAOS: Let them eat cake, the president says!

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2025

But Democrats more "out of touch!" We're prepared to admit it! Initially, we misunderstood this report from Mediate. It was the first such report we saw:

Dems Pounce On Trump Throwing A ‘Great Gatsby’ Party As Americans Suffer: ‘He Does Not Give a Damn About You’

Democrats pounced on Saturday as photos emerged of President Donald Trump’s lavish Halloween “Great Gatsby”-themed party at his Mar-a-Lago club, which they deemed tasteless on the eve of SNAP benefits running out for millions of Americans.

One political commentator posted an apropos quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece of the Roaring 1920s, writing, “They were careless people… they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Rumored 2028 presidential hopeful Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) posted, “Donald Trump hosted a Great Gatsby party while SNAP benefits were about to disappear for 42 million Americans. He does not give a damn about you.”

Podcaster Harry Sisson, who was targeted in Trump’s bizarre AI-generated fighter-jet “poop” video, wrote, “Donald Trump was having a Great Gatsby themed Halloween party with his billionaire friends while millions of Americans went to bed wondering if they’ll be able to feed their kids this month. Trump is the worst.”

In fairness, we initially misunderstood the reference to a Great Gatsby "themed" soiree. At first, we assumed that must have been a bit of an editorial comment inserted by the Mediaite reporter.

As it turned out, no! USA Today opened its news report about the event with that same locution. It even used that formulation in its headline—but then, it seemed to explain:

Trump held 'Great Gatsby'-themed Halloween party as SNAP benefits were due to be cut off

President Donald Trump hosted a Great Gatsy-themed party at Mar-A-Lago on Oct. 31, as multiple federal judges ruled the administration could not stop funding food aid amid the ongoing government shutdown.

The party was labeled "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody" according to multiple media attendees. The title was drawn from a song on the soundtrack of the 2013 movie adaptation of "The Great Gatsby."

[...]

Guests were seen mimicking "Roaring 20's" era attire, a period just before the Great Depression that historians note for its staggering income inequity. History.com notes that in 1928 the top 1% of families received 23.9% of all pretax income and about 60% of families made less than the income level the Bureau of Labor Statistics classified as the minimum livable income for a family of five.

It sounded like the Gatsby theme had been conveyed to the guests. USA Today linked to this report by ABC News, which seemed to make the matter clear: 

The "Great Gatsby" theme for the hoedown had come from the president himself! That idea had seemed so nutty that we had assumed it couldn't be true.

We ask forgiveness for our initial assumption, which seems to have been incorrect. As to a basic question—Under current circumstances, how could any politician build a party around that theme?—we remind you of the following piece of medical science:

Antisocial personality disorder

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is a personality disorder defined by a chronic pattern of behavior that disregards the rights and well-being of others. People with ASPD often exhibit behavior that conflicts with social norms, leading to issues with interpersonal relationships, employment, and legal matters. The condition generally manifests in childhood or early adolescence, with a high rate of associated conduct problems and a tendency for symptoms to peak in late adolescence and early adulthood.

The prognosis for ASPD is complex, with high variability in outcomes...

[...]

Epidemiology

The estimated lifetime prevalence of ASPD amongst the general population falls within 1% to 4%, skewed towards 6% men and 2% women...

Say what? According to that leading authority, something like six percent of adult men can be diagnosed with ASPD at some point in their lives.  Can that possibly be accurate?

(We also note the reference to "individuals with severe ASPD symptoms." That suggests that there may be some such afflictions which are more severe, and some which may be milder.)

Presumably to its credit, the leading authority doesn't use the word "sociopath" at any point in its lengthy discussion of this "personality disorder." 

According to an array of sources, "sociopath" is a purely colloquial term—a term which isn't used in clinical diagnosis. But it's the colloquial term which is commonly associated with a diagnosis of ASPD.

What could explain the apparent cluelessness which would seem to be involved in the decision to throw a Gatsby party even as federal food assistance (SNAP) was (temporarily?) ceasing to exist? Could the presence of that personality disorder, with its attendant "lack of concern for the well-being of others," possibly start to explain?

We assign ourselves the task of revisiting this topic because, thanks to a general rule of the guild, the leading news orgs in Blue America have agreed that they themselves never will. They've agreed that they will never interview any (carefully selected) medical specialists who may have professional experience with such "disorders." 

It's also true that the New York Times, as of this very morning, seems to have published no news reports or opinion pieces about this fete which use the term "Gatsby" at all. 

This news report in Sunday's print editions made a fleeting reference to a "Halloween party" at Mar-a-Lago, but then left things right there. You have to turn to Mediaite, or perhaps to USA Today, to read reports about this latest peculiar choice by the sitting president. For whatever reason, the Times continues to disappear and ignore—in that way, to normalize—the endless array of extremely peculiar behaviors and statements which emerge from President Trump.

Our guess would be that residents of Blue America are unaware of this choice by Silo Blue's leading newspaper. Under the circumstances, we'll also guess that most residents of Blue America would be puzzled by one part of this news report about a new survey by the Washington Post / ABC News / Ipsos:

Voters broadly disapprove of Trump but remain divided on midterms, poll finds

Americans broadly disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling his job, and a majority say he has gone too far in exercising the powers of his office, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll. But a year out from the 2026 midterm elections, there is little evidence that negative impressions of Trump’s performance have accrued to the benefit of the Democratic Party, with voters split almost evenly in their support for Democrats and Republicans.

Overall, 41 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Trump is doing, while 59 percent disapprove...

Respondents disapproved of the president's job performance by an 18-point margin. But as the Post's report goes on to note, when respondents were asked to say who's "out of touch with the concerns of most Americans," the numbers came out looking like this:

Question: 
Do you think ... is in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today, or is [he/it] out of touch?

Respondents saying "Out of touch:"
President Trump: 63%
Republican Party: 61%
Democratic Party: 68%

Those aren't gigantic margins. But respondents seemed to position the Democratic Party as most "out of touch" of them all.

Do those of us in Blue America understand some such result? We'll examine attendant questions all this week as we ponder that result.

The president said, "Let them eat cake"—but he's less "out of touch" than Blue America's political party! The Gatsby party hadn't happened when the survey took place, but that's what the survey said.

An array of factors may have contributed to that polling result. As we'll note, quite a few of those factors involve a problem with Them. Do any of those factors involve a possible problem with Us?

Our failing or failed American discourse lies in a state of rubble, rapidly moving toward chaos.  Is it possible that some of that chaos tracks back Over Here, to Us?

Tomorrow: C-Span caller speaks

SATURDAY: Mockingbirds singing, if you can see it!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2025

But also, what Seth Moulton said: We start by thanking the ornamental pumpkins which "have brightened our pathways a while."

In this difficult time, it makes good sense for people to take their pleasure where they can honorably find it. Our neighborhood's ornamental pumpkins and winter squash—first cousins to Atticus Finch's mockingbirds—have been giving us a smile every time over the past several weeks.

Here's what Atticus said:

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ʼem, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy....They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin...

We think of that statement every time we look on our neighborhood's front-steps pumpkin displays. In their vast array of presentations, the pumpkins and the winter squash seem to know how visually amusing they are. Without making a sound, they seem to be singing their hearts out for us.

They seem to be giving all that they have. For enjoyable photos, start here.

Then too, we turn to the amusing question of the World Series seventh game. We attended a seventh game once, right here in Baltimore, Maryland.

It was Game 7 of the 1971 series. We strolled roughly one mile to Memorial Stadium and bought two tickets—at the ticket booth!—on the very day of the game. 

Baseball was different then. According to Baseball Reference, these were the official attendance figures for the four games played in Baltimore as roving gangs ruled the streets:

Game 1: 53,229
Game 2: 53,239

Game 6: 44,174
Game 7: 47,291

Were there really six thousand unsold tickets for that Game 7? (The Pirates won, 2-1, in two hours and ten minutes.) 

We can't say we remember those empty seats. But even as game time approached, Game 7 wasn't a sellout. That was a different time. 

Finally, it was Jennifer Bowers Bahney to the rescue at yesterday's Mediaite. On yesterday morning's Morning Joe, Rep. Seth Moulton had done a very unusual thing.

Instantly, Scarborough cut him off—as, of course, he should have. Bowers Bahney wrote it up and she provided the videotape:

Scarborough Shuts Down House Democrat Who Claimed Trump ‘Took Advantage of Young Girls With Epstein’

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough jumped on a Democratic lawmaker Friday for declaring that President Donald Trump “took advantage of young girls” when he was associated with convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Rep. Seth Moulton’s (D-MA) comments came after Morning Joe’s Willie Geist asked, “What is the most effective message for Democrats in this moment?”

“The Democrats are here to help working people in America, and Republicans are here to protect the billionaire class,” Moulton said. “And what you see time and again from this White House, you know, if you’re a criminal, you’re going to buy your way to freedom with Trump. If you are one of the people like him who took advantage of young girls with Jeffrey Epstein, then we’re going to sort of make that go away. I mean, fundamentally, Speaker Johnson—”

Scarborough interrupted to say, “We don’t have evidence that he took advantage of young girls with Jeffrey Epstein.”

“Right, right, right.” Moulton [sarcastically] answered. “Just, common sense be damned.”

The report continues from there. That was a very unusual thing for Moulton to do. Instantly jumping in, Scarborough did what a journalist should.

Why does the Trump administration seem to be trying so hard to keep the Epstein files hidden? In Blue America, it's natural that we might want to believe that Moulton has the answer.

That said, there's no evidence of such misconduct on Trump's part. For what it's worth, Amy Wallace, who co-wrote the new book by the late Virginia Giuffre. has explicitly said that Giuffre "never talked about him in any sense that he was involved in any of this." 

We saw Wallace, an experienced journalist, restate that point on cable just last week.

What may be in the Epstein files? Will the files ever go public? Could Moulton's speculation turn out to be right? Will the American government, such as it was, ever be "open" again?

We can't answer those questions. Also, we don't believe that Blue America can really expect to prosper by adopting the mud-wrestling tactics on display within the playrooms of the current head of state.

For whatever reason, the president emits a never-ending stream of false or unfounded statements. He's more skilled at that game than most Blues are. For him, a war of unfounded statements will frequently result in a win.

FRIDAY: Moulton makes an unfounded claim!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2025

Voters eschew big ballroom: A remarkable moment occurred on this morning's Morning Joe. We're surprised that Mediaite doesn't seem to have caught it.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) made an unsupported claim about President Trump's imagined connection to the Epstein tapes. Instantly, Joe Scarborough jumped in to challenge what Moulton said. He was right to do that.

At some point, we expect to be able to show you what was said. For now, it's on to a set of results from a new survey by the Washington Post / ABC News / Ipsos.

For the record, surveys aren't always accurate. That said, this was the headline on one report about one of this new survey's results:

Americans blame Trump and GOP more than Democrats for shutdown, poll finds

More Americans blame President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress than Democrats for the nearly month-long government shutdown, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.

More than 4 in 10 U.S. adults—45 percent—say Trump and the GOP are mainly responsible for the shutdown that may lead the government to cut off anti-hunger benefits, has caused air traffic delays and has furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Yet the share saying Democrats are at fault has grown slightly, from 30 percent in a Post flash poll when the shutdown began to 33 percent in the latest poll. Among registered voters, 37 percent now blame Democrats, while 46 percent blame Republicans.

And so on from there. We wouldn't call that a gigantic edge. 

This other result, which echoes results from at least one earlier poll, seems more surprising to us, but also more encouraging:

Most Americans oppose East Wing demolition for Trump ballroom, poll finds

Americans oppose President Donald Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing to make way for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom building by a 2-to-1 margin, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Thursday.

Twenty-eight percent of Americans say they support the demolition project, paid for by $300 million in private donations from U.S. businesses and individuals, compared with 56 percent who oppose it, the poll finds. Another 16 percent are not sure whether they support or oppose the project.

That's a substantial margin. Among self-identified Independents, 61% said they oppose the demolition. Only 17% said they support it.

Despite the agitprop recited on Fox, the demolition of the East Wing was a piece of highly unusual behavior. If only the stars of the major Blue American press were willing to focus on the president's endless string of weird behaviors as a serious stand-alone news hook—as a serious ongoing topic.

Moulton's claim will follow, perhaps tomorrow. That moment was also quite unusual. We have no way of knowing whether Moulton's assertion was right or was wrong.